Lake Twp.-Joint pursuit of bike trail grants OKd

Written by Larry Limpf

December 09, 2013

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The Lake Township trustees Tuesday offered their support to a proposal to seek grants to help fund the construction costs for a stretch of the North Coast Inland Trail linking the Village of Millbury to the township.

Representatives of Poggemeyer Design Group, a Bowling Green-based engineering firm, made a presentation to the board of trustees, saying grants are more likely to be awarded for the project if the township and village jointly seek the funding.

“Basically they want to know if we’re on board,” Richard Welling, a trustee, said Thursday.

The village has two parks along Fostoria Road, Passive Park and Veteran’s Memorial Park, and in the township, Fireside Park sits along Ayers Road and Friendship Park is adjacent to the township administration building at the corner of State Route 795 and Cummings Road.

A stretch of Ayers already is marked with signage as a bike route but doesn’t have an actual bike lane.

A proposal being considered would link the parks in the village to those in the township.

“They want us to sit down with them and look at an expansion of the trail through Millbury and try to connect at least Veterans Park to our park by going together on a joint project,” said Melanie Bowen, who chairs the board of trustees. “We said we’d sit down and look at it.”

She said Ron Hanley, township parks director, will join her in discussions with PDG and representatives of the village about the project.

Millbury Mayor Michael Timmons attended the trustees meeting. In March, he suggested the township and village join forces in seeking grants to help pay for a bike trail and said the village could apply for funding through the Toledo Metropolitan Area Council of Governments in 2014.

Grants with funding ratio percentages of 70/30 and 60/40 may be available, he said at the time.

To the east in Ottawa County, officials in the Village of Genoa are also examining options for linking the village to where the trail winds through the Village of Elmore.

Refuse contractThe trustees also awarded a three-year contract for refuse collection and recycling service to Republic Services, Erie, Mich.

The company will charge $12.93 per household a month for weekly refuse collection and bi-weekly recycling service.

Residents will be provided 96-gallon carts for recycling at no cost.

The trustees also approved a resolution asking the Wood County engineer’s office to conduct a traffic survey on Lemoyne Road, between Ayers Road and a set of rail tracks north of the Lake school campus.

The trustees are requesting a speed limit of 35 miles per hour for that stretch of Lemoyne. The limit is currently 55.

At a previous meeting, several Lemoyne Road residents complained about speeding motorists.

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